them through a cleft in the
rocks. The village itself we did not see, but skirted it upon high
ground and came down to the foreshore a short two miles beyond it;
where we found a beach and a spit of rock, and on the spit a
tumble-down tower standing, as lonely as a combed louse. Above the
beach ran a tolerable coast road, which divided itself into two,
after crossing a bridge behind the tower; the one following the
shore, the other striking inland up the devil of a gorge.
This inland road we took, for two reasons; the first, that by the map
it appeared to cut off a corner of our journey; the second, because
the map showed a village, not three miles up the gorge, where we
might get advice.

"After an hour's climbing then (for the road twisted uphill along the
edge of the torrent) we came to the village, which was called Otta.
Now, the first thing to happen to us in Otta was that we found it
empty--not so much as a dog in the street--but all the inhabitants on
the hill above, in a crowd before a mighty great stone: and Badcock
would have it that they were gathered together in fear of us.
But the true reason turned out to be something quite different.
For this stone overhangs the village, which is built on a stiff
slope; and though it has hung there for hundreds of years without
moving, the villagers can never be easy that it will not tumble on
top of them; and once a year regularly, and at odd times when the
panic takes them, they march up and tie it with ropes. This very
thing they were doing as we arrived, and all because some old woman
had dreamed of an earthquake. We took notice that in the crowd and
in the gang binding the stone there was no man the right side of
fifty (barring a cripple or two); the reason being that all their
young men had enlisted in the militia.

"These people made us welcome (and I will say, gentlemen, once for
all and in spite of what has happened to Master Prosper here, that
there is no such folk as the Corsicans for kindness to strangers),
but they told us we were on the wrong road. By following the pass we
should find ourselves in forest-tracks which indeed would lead us
down to the great plain of the Niolo and across it to Corte, whence a
good road ran north to Cape Corso; but our shorter way was the
coast-road, which (they added) we must leave before reaching Calvi--
for fear of the Genoese--and take a southerly one which wound through
the mountains to Calenzana. They explained t